the mom in me bows to the mom in you

Tag Archives: depression

It has been a few since I posted. Days? Weeks? Months? Who know? I lost track.

I guess the typical myriad of reasons is to blame. Life is busy. I’m a mom. I work. You can only post so many times about the frustrations of your messy house and kids’ behavior in the summer before you start to hate the sound of your own voice. Blah, blah, blah.

There was something else. . .

My last post was about depression and frustration with life as a mom trying to balance work and parenting and the ongoing grief of losing a close friend. I was responding to one of the WordPress daily prompts, and I allowed myself to get pretty far out with my metaphors. I do that sometimes. It’s part of my process as a writer, and it also helps me deal with my feelings.

Cuz you guys, I have a lot of feelings.

Like, all the feelings. All of them. And lots of all of the feelings.

It’s just how I live. And it’s why I write.

Anyhoo, a very well-meaning reader commented that she felt bad for my kids because I was so depressed and maybe it was hard for them. She went on to make a bunch of heart felt suggestions about maybe I should join a group or try feeling better, etc.

I get where she was coming from, and I genuinely appreciated her kindness and concern.

But there was another part of me that felt incredibly vulnerable and frightened. Like, do people think I’m crazy? Do people think I’m a bad mom? Am I a bad mom? Am I screwing up my kids?

For a few hours I contemplated taking the post down, hiding it in the stack of posts that feel too raw, real, and close to share with the general public.

But then I pulled the brake on the run away mine cart in twisty recesses of my brain.

No. I’m not a bad mom.

And my kids are fine.

My kids don’t see me as depressed or damaged or screwed up. My kids see me as a human with human emotions. My kids see me as a person with big feels who channels those feels into poetry and art and silliness around the house.

Life isn’t always rainbows and unicorns, and I do not think we should pretend it is for our children. That is not reality and it doesn’t prepare or teach kids for what they need to deal with the complexities of the world in which we live, or their own emotional landscapes.

This is not to say that children who live with caretakers with severe and persistent mental health issues don’t suffer profound consequences if the adult does not seek help. That situation is no joke, and I am not writing to minimize it. But that situation is not me or mine.

I’ve cried in front of my kids. I’ve yelled and screamed in front of my kids. I’ve slammed a door once or twice. I admit I’m not perfect. But I’ve also taken loads of deep breaths. I’ve talked about my feelings. I’ve taken space and counted to ten. I’ve modeled healthy coping skills for them right along with being my own human self.

Am I screwing up my kids? Yes. Of course I am. We all screw up our kids in one way or another. And if you think you don’t, then you are living among the rainbows and unicorns and more power to you.

So I left the post up, because here is the other thing:

As moms with mental health issues and needs, we absolutely have to have safe and open space to address these topics. For me, my blog is my space. I’ve had decades of therapy and it has helped. I know the things and the skills. At this point in my life, writing is the way I process and what I need to do to take care of myself.

Feeling judged and crazy because we are anxious or depressed is a huge barrier for women in admitting and addressing their needs for support and treatment. Too long have we been told we are hysterical and maligned for simply feeling the pressure of this impossible life.

And oh my goodness, it really is impossible. Being a mom, let alone a working mom, is the hardest thing I can imagine. Add into that the facets of anxiety or depression and you have something so real.

So, despite my fear and vulnerability, I left the post up. I’m no heroine, but if my words resonated with even one other mom, then I feel like it was worth it to put myself out there.

Look. If you had a cold or a toothache, it would be excruciating to deal with life, to work, to mom, to cook and clean and do all the things you have to do to be responsible. But would you feel ashamed to say, “Whoa, it’s really difficult to mom and adult today because of this cold?” Probably not.

I don’t really think it should be any different with anxiety and depression. Our feelings can get big and become sort of like emotional toothaches. That isn’t something to feel shame about.

But I did. And I do. And part of me still wants to take that post down so that you’ll all think I have my shit together and that I’m a super great mom and that I’m doing okay.

Truth is, I am a super great mom and I’m doing okay. And my kids are okay. No need to worry about my kids. We are all going to make it.

What are your thoughts? What are your struggles? I’d love to hear from you!

It’s still a little dusky light out, and I’m lying in bed with my daughter, who’s already asleep. Tears slide down my cheeks as they usually do at this time of day. It’s become somewhat of a ritual. My crepuscular cry.

It pisses me the fuck off.

I’ve never cried so much in my life. It’s dumb. It feels shitty. Crying is supposed to make you feel better. It’s science. It releases good chemicals in your brain. I tell my clients all the time about the beautiful and sacred purpose of tears. All. The. Freaking. Time. But it never fails to make me feel like a failure and a fraud and just so fatigued.

It’s been a hard year. Probably the hardest.

I feel I have some sort of obligation to buy space in a newspaper and print a public apology to anyone who has known me over the past year. I’ve been a horrible train wreck of a human. I’ve been messy and loud and weird.

If you all could have known me a couple years ago, I want to say. If you had known me then. Those were the good days. Those were the times I bore some semblance to normal, when I could contain my Self better.

That was when I was at my old job. With E. just two doors down from me every day for years and years.

Those were the days when E. would leave me random clippings from the New York Times Sunday paper on my desk at work. She’d cut out stuff she thought I’d find interesting. I remember one about the healing power of fairy tales.

The memory of these flimsy papers brings a fresh wave of grief crashing down over my head. I’d read them and think of something pithy to say in return, then travel the five paces to her door to chat with her.

Those were the days when I was witty and reformed. If you had only known me then. Sure, I had my rough times, plenty of them. But I wasn’t broken. Not like I am now.

Changing jobs was really difficult in ways I never could have predicted, but I think I could have adapted a hell of a lot better if I hadn’t had the sudden trauma of E. up and dying on me last October.

It’s not just work and death. It’s motherhood and marriage and financial instability. It’s never having enough time or energy to brush my children’s hair and feed them breakfast. It’s all the piles of things that make me want to curl up in bed and daydream for three hours.

All the things. They have broken me.

The thought occurs to me that I might not ever get fixed again.

I blame a lot on E. and maybe that’s not fair. But seriously…

E.’s death changed me. I kept thinking I would trudge through the grief and get to the other side and things would “get back to normal” and I would “feel like myself again.” That doesn’t seem to be the case. I think E.’s death altered me at a molecular level, shifted my DNA in ways I won’t be able to figure out how to switch back.

The light is fading and I’m so tired. I consider falling asleep next to my daughter, but there is still a lot of laundry to do, coffee to set up for the morning, and messages to return to friends.

I think about going to work this week and my heart starts to race. I think about the stack of bills lying in wait on my desk and my stomach lurches. I’m no longer sleepy.

I try to think about how my five year old daughter rode her bike with no training wheels for the first time this weekend, and how my nine year old has his first band concert this week in which he will play the trumpet. What brilliant triumphs!

You see, I’m not a total Debbie Downer. I still get blissed out by these every day miracles. Life still has color and flavor and lots of sound. I take every opportunity I can to indulge in rampant laughter.

But mostly I’m adrift inside myself, lost in the space within me. I’m like an astronaut, untethered from her rocket and running low on oxygen, uncertain what will happen next.

It’s a scary image. I think of calling someone up and telling someone about it, but I can’t reach out because that is even scarier.

I’d like to go and sit in the grass with E. and talk to her. It is one of the only places where I feel at peace these days, and sometimes I feel frustrated when I can’t get there, but the thought occurs to me that you can’t live your life in a cemetery.

I roll onto my back and look up into the darkness of my daughter’s room.

I’ve stopped crying.

I know I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and panic at the brackish taste in my mouth. My mind will race back over all the things I said throughout the previous day and will try to remember if I said anything gravely wrong or damning to anyone.

I’ll get up and brush my teeth. I’ll look at my reflection and think it’s so weird to be up brushing my teeth at three in the morning, but it’ll ground me enough to go back to bed for a couple more hours.

Do you remember those “Chose Your Own Adventure” books from when we were in fourth or fifth grade?

They were these young reader books where you’d get to the end of a chapter and if you wanted to take the character to a cave to fight a dragon it would tell you to flip to a certain page, and if you wanted the character to get in a boat and sail off someplace, you’d be instructed to go to a different page.

As I got in the shower, and reflected on Mother’s Day, I thought how motherhood is sort of like a Chose Your Own Adventure book.

I thought this because I thought “Mother’s Day; what a fucking crock of shit.”

And then the guilty little people pleaser in me poked me in the ribs and said meekly, “But you should be so grateful! It really wasn’t all bad! Why don’t you just chose to think it was nice?”

It’s true. Overall it was a nice day. I felt loved and cared for, managed to please my own mother and my mother in law (nailed it!), and had good laughs among family. My children made me gifts and delighted me by creating beautiful cards for their grandmothers.

I got sweet, supportive texts from dear friends. I felt recognized by my husband who pulled out all the stops with four bottles of incredible wine, flowers, and a balloon. A balloon you guys! I got a freaking balloon!! I mean, how does life get any better than that?

If you want your character to chose gratitude and happiness, and to enjoy and be thankful for what she has, please turn to page 42 where she lives happily after.

Learning to chose the way you think about things is an important step in recovery from anxiety and depression. I know this as both a mental health professional, and as someone who has experienced anxiety and depression. When we are able to recognize our negative thoughts and rework them into something more positive and helpful, it often creates a more positive and helpful feeling space in us.

And when we feel better, we behave better. We get along better with our spouses and friends. We have more energy for negotiating with the little people in our lives.

So, as I lathered my hair with amazing-smelling coconut shampoo, I tried out some different thoughts about Mother’s Day and I wondered why my initial impulse was to be so negative about it.

Why am I always so negative anyway? I must really suck at life. I’m probably going to be rejected by all my friends and family because I’m such a Debbie Downer. Why can’t I ever just be joyful and super positive about stuff? What the hell is wrong with me? Oh. My. Gee.

It’s cuz I’m depressed you guys. That’s why.

I have been for a while. I’ve been ignoring it and working around the super high anxiety that makes me feel like I’m crawling out of my skin one moment and paralyzed with fear the next. I’ve been isolating and only talking to a few people in my life. I’ve had minimal energy to be with friends and family.

I’ve written almost nothing in the past few months because I’ve had so little energy and almost no joy.

Some of it, I suppose, is chemical- my genetic lot in life.

A lot of it is situational.

Work has been super stressful for me. I’m burnt out and experiencing a fairly intense compassion fatigue which doesn’t leave me with much of an empathy cushion for family or social life.

My son’s behavioral issues have been amped up lately and this creates exhaustion and a keen sense of failure as a parent which plays into my depression like a lyrical melody.

I’m also preparing for my daughter to graduate from preschool. While this is a joyful and exciting time and we are so proud, it also brings into focus a new era for which I am simply not feeling prepared.

Then there is preparing for the summer. As a working mom, arranging all the moving parts of summer camps, transportation, child care, etc. is hugely nerve wracking for me. Not to mention a drain on our finances.

Oh, also my mentally ill brother has gone missing again which never fails to throw my family into emotional upheaval.

I’m not sleeping well, so I’m perpetually tired. My body hurts. About 67% of the time I’m too stressed to eat so my blood sugar is wonky and I’m grouchy.

And because I’m already feeling emotionally fragile, every other little thing that goes wrong sets me off like a firecracker.

It’s hard for me to admit this. I actually hate the sound of my own voice in my head as I peck it all out into this post.

It’s hard for me to admit my negative thoughts about Mother’s Day when I should just be fucking grateful.

But you guys, it’s all so hard. It’s all just so fucking hard.

No one ever told me it would be this hard. Or maybe they did. . . maybe somewhere in my memory there is a shadowy recollection of my own mother’s bedraggled face dragging herself in at the end of a working day and trying to get dinner on the table. Maybe she did try and tell me. But let’s be honest, even if someone had told me, I would not have believed them, because if any of us believed such a thing we would never procreate. Our species depends on the very suspension of that disbelief.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it is all well and good to chose your thoughts and mood and destiny. It’s great. I respect it.

But sometimes the adventures of motherhood chose us and flip us into a cave where it is dark and dank and unpleasant. When you’re sitting there face to face with the dragon of your depression and your heart is thumping away at a resting rate of 150 beats per minute, it is really hard to have a cohesive thought, let alone a positive one of your own choosing.

If your character looks up at the dragon and says, “Hey there, guy. What’s up?” go to page 74 where you will work on acknowledging the shit out of your self worth even on your shittiest day and then eat a taco.

Yeah. This isn’t my character’s first trip to the cave. So I know the least helpful (albeit most tempting) thing to do is to put myself down for being depressed.

I also know that probably the first thing I need to do is look up at that dopey dragon and acknowledge he’s there, lurking and looming like he wants to devour me. He’s scared of eye contact and he gets a little smaller every time I call him by his name.

It’s all hard, guys, and sometimes holidays can highlight what feels like flaws and make things seem really raw and painful. Part of healing starts with choosing to make room for all those feelings rather than shaming myself for feeling them.

I’ve put my daughter Emily to bed. I’ve laid in bed with her until she’s drifted off and her breath is slow and steady and almost hypnotic.

All of a sudden I’m bawling my eyes out, shuddering silently next to her. I don’t want to wake her, but it feels like I will never stop as my body shakes and tears gush down my cheeks. I feel like someone is punching me in my face, in my gut. I feel like someone is wrapping their hand around my throat.

My five year old purrs in her dreams, and the noise tethers me to this reality.

I take out my phone and text my best friend. I beg her to never die. She says something warm and then tells me a joke and next thing I know I’m shaking again, but this time in laughter.

That’s how life is these days.

My mood shifts as though I’m dancing on the edge of a blade. One moment, I’ve got my shit together and the next I’m dissolving.

It’s been four months since E. died. Almost five. It seems an eternity and it seems no time at all. I still just want to talk about her all the time. Her voice is still right beneath the follicles of my hair. And yet, despite the immediacy of her presence, she is farther away than ever.

Death is a fucking fucker and that is about as eloquent as I can get about it at the moment. Grief is an even fucking-er fucker.

Someone said to me last week that grief is love that has nowhere to go. That’s a more graceful way of putting what I feel I guess. This pent up surge of love and emotion that has no channel.

I go to E.’s grave every week and I talk to her. I catch my voice rise and fall in the same cadence it would when she was alive with me. We had this silly, journalistic way of talking to one another, reporting all of the mundane.

She remembered everything I told her, even the dumbest, most minor details like it was something super important. She relished stories about my husband and kids. You know, as a working mom, it does not take much to make me happy. I’d tell her stuff like how touched I was that my husband stayed home with a sick kiddo or remembered to buy toilet paper on his way home from work, and she’d bring it up months later. Like if I was annoyed with my husband, she would say something like, “But he’s really a thoughtful guy. Remember the time he brought home the toilet paper and took Jack to the doctor?”

She made me feel so important. So special. So loved. Who on earth is every going to give a tiny rat’s ass about my membership to the big box store and the lifetime supply of granola I acquired?

So I go to her grave and I talk to her. I tell her everything. I tell her what I’m wearing. I tell her what I had for lunch. I tell her about the unicorn Emily drew, and I tell her that Jack learned how to play the Star Wars theme on his trumpet. I read her poems. I play songs for her.

There’s a part of me that knows I’m just talking to myself, and it breaks my heart.

It makes me cry from so deep within myself, from a place that is still little and frightened, from a place that wants to stamp my foot and pound my fist against my thighs and demand that she come back her right this instant or else!

I keep thinking that any day now I’m going to feel better.

Sometimes I do feel better. I’m not miserable. I still find pleasure in life.

You may have noticed I haven’t written much lately, and when I have, it has been these morose little poems. Ugh. Yeah. I’m sorry about that.

It’s like I just don’t have anything else in me. I feel terrible for not writing more about my kids or all of the other random myriad of great stuff that goes on, but I sort of feel so drained that to sit down and write anything cohesive and thought out like I wrote two or three years ago would just be impossible.

It seems like all around me people are doing amazing stuff. Friends are going to political events and getting involved in volunteer work. Colleagues are reading up on the latest in clinical research and going to conferences to stay current. People on Facebook are exercising and drinking protein shakes and hanging out in clubs.

I’m just over here like, “How the fuck do you all feel like it?”

I just want to go climb into my bed.

I want to lie still and daydream about being a mermaid, about swimming far far away under the water and not hearing anything but the swishy splash of my own tail.

I’m so freaking tired. It feels a monumental effort to breathe. Everyone else is engaging in their cool hobbies and I can basically say, “Well, I managed to keep breathing all week. It was hard and kind of painful, but I did it. So, I’ve got that going for me.”

It’s sort of ironic that I want to duck under the water and swim away when I spend so much of my energy just trying to keep my head above water, but then I’ve always been a portrait in contradictions.

That right there would have given E. a good chuckle.

I miss E. so much, and I wish I could talk to her about this. I wish I could tell her how tired I am and how sad, how desperately sad, every single breath feels.

But then there is the squishy pillow of my daughter’s cheek under my lips as I get up from her bed to leave her room. I draw breath enough to whisper that I love her into her sleeping ear. I draw another breath. Then another. And I know I’ll keep breathing, breath by breath, until maybe it doesn’t hurt quite as much.

There is nothing like a holiday, and co-occuring school vacation, that validates my ineptitude- not just at motherhood but at this entire thing called life.

If you’re going to get all judgey-wudgey with me and tell me to shift my perspective and appreciate the precious moments, please stop reading and go away now, for the love of all that is holy. I. Can’t. Even. I intend to rant a little. Or a lot.

I’m exhausted from this time of rest and relaxation, and I go back to work to a week of back to back clients with whom I have to play catch up, and hear about all of their holiday woes and really valid trauma reactions to stuff. To be completely honest, I’ve been anxious about going back to work since about a week before my vacation even started, which kinda’ harshes the holiday buzz. So, if you’d humor me, I’ll take a couple minutes to talk about MY feelings about the holidays, motherhood, and my consummate failure as a human being.

First of all, the house is a disaster zone. I know, I know. I’m not supposed to worry about the state of the house, but I do. My children have eight grandparents because my family is crazy and blended several times over. I’ll give you a second to let that sink in. EIGHT grandparents.

Now imagine the influx of stuff they get from said eight grands. You there? Good. Now imagine all that stuff dumped and scattered throughout your entire small home.

Footnote: You can’t ask them to *not* get stuff for the kids because that engenders all kinds of offense and hurt feelings. Been there, done that.

I have crates and bins and dividers and shelves and all of the home goods crap that is supposed to make life neat and organized. You know what? None of it does a bit of good. I wander the house picking up toys and clothes and dishes, and as soon as I put away one thing, ten other things appear in its place. The mess makes my anxiety flare and spin inside of me like a Hawaiian fire dancer.

Some people, like my darling husband, have an impressively high threshold for chaos, disorganization, and clutter.

I don’t.

After ten years of marriage, he sort of understands that when I get like this, he should not take it personally, maybe clear the kids out of the way for a little bit, and bring home a bottle of wine.

He hasn’t seemed to figure out that firing up the vacuum or organizing anything within his reach would go a long way toward deescalating my fervor. That is, he doesn’t get it until I’m screaming and crying about it. . . because that’s the point it gets to. Not all the time, but once in a while and more often during the holidays than I would like to admit. It makes me feel really ashamed, then depressed I can’t get it the fuck together.

Then, there are the children. My sweet, happy, playful children who become maniacal, aggressive, and very loud lunatics when their schedule is upended. Rather, I should say my nine year old Jack has this low threshold for change, is easily overstimulated, and sets off my typically placid five year old, Emily. Jack has meltdowns that escalate really fast and involve a lot of sensory seeking in the form of yelling, pushing, and crying.

If you know me, or can relate to any of this whatsoever, you know my first thought: I created this monster and it is my fault he is unhappy because he inherited my anxiety and depression and it is just a matter of time until I’m being judged by another therapist just like myself and my kid has to go on medication because I’m a complete failure as a mom and have no idea how to parent my kid. It’s science.

And yes, I know that sentence needed some punctuation, but that is how my mind works.

Part of the stress for me, and probably also for my kids, is that with such a big and blended family, there are a shit ton of family parties, get togethers, and visits to be made. In a perfect world I would really enjoy seeing all of these people hither and yonder and would feel awesome about reconnecting and celebrating with them.

Truthfully, I do enjoy it, but it’s also stressful, draining, and unnerving. It seems like more proof I’m a complete asshat of a person. While I enjoy seeing people, it also makes me feel guilty that I haven’t seen more of them, that I haven’t made more of an effort of helping my children get to know them. It is more fuel for anxiety and self depreciation.

And while I know I might be a bit harsh on myself, it also seems there’s a lot of evidence I suck at life.

I DO realize it’s not all bad. And trust me, I’m grateful, despite how this post is making me sound (more proof?). We had some truly happy moments over the break. We laughed. I actually napped a few times! My husband got me everything on my holiday wish list and the kids were delighted and occupied with their gifts. I adore my family, and they fill to overflowing with love, which I believe is the most important thing in life. We have it all.

So what is it about the times of loud chaos that so upends my joy?

It’s a rhetorical question, folks. I don’t actually have an answer, which sometimes I’m okay with, and other times cranks up the hurdy gurdy of nerves and makes me want to run away with the circus. But let’s face it, I’m terrified of horses and clowns. Like actually phobic of them. So, the circus is probably not a viable option.

There’s no escape.

There’s really only embracing the uncomfortable, nervy sadness and frustration along with the sense of being completely bowled over by living. It’s tough to get my arms around, and it wiggles while I try to hold it.

Look, I could tie this post up by refocusing on a tender moment and telling you it’s all good in the end. I really could do that, and I could probably mean it. But it seems like that would be disingenuous. It doesn’t seem like it would be totally helpful to ignore the tough times when they really feel so weighted, because if I ignore them, they might subtly start to pull me down, hold me under the surface.

I also feel it’s important to acknowledge “the most wonderful time of the year” is really freaking difficult for a lot of us out here. The commercials and songs tell us we are supposed to feel and act a very specific way during the holidays, and these unrealistic images and expectations create tremendous cognitive dissonance for those who can’t understand why we don’t “get it.”

Sometimes stuff is just hard and heavy to hold onto. I have to believe that’s okay and it doesn’t make me a bad person; at least not all the time.

It four in the morning and I’m up. Apparently grief has changed my ability to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, in addition to the other chaos and havoc it is exerting on my life.

This isn’t great for me because I’m really susceptible to sleep deprivation. Like, remember that time I tried to sell my newborn on the internet?

But I digress (probably another function of sleep deprivation).

I was saying to a friend that grief has changed my biological responses to things. Like sleep. And eating. I wake with this perpetually queasy and anxious tummy. My head hurts. Food tastes different, like it’s wrong or spoiled. It turns my stomach.

Even my heartbeat feels erratic, rushed, wild.

I’m not particularly worried about this. I know I’ll sleep eventually, and I have 30 extra pounds I could stand to lose, so it’s not like I’m going to damage my health.

I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But until I get to it, it’s pretty freaking uncomfortable, messy, and frustrating.

I’m a person who likes order and control, afterall. So to be throwing myself head first into the ugly business of death is different and difficult, to say the least.

It reminds me of a perpetual hangover, although I’ve consumed no alcohol. And do you know what that reminds me of? Morning sickness.

When I was pregnant with both of my babies, I had vicious morning sickness for the entire first trimester, more so with my daughter than with my son.

It was like my body staged a revolution and revolted against the way it had always been.

But I had faith, even on the worst days when I could barely stand up, that it would eventually go away and something beautiful and miraculous would happen as a result of that hardship.

Mourning sickness.

Get it?

I went to E.’s grave this week on a really bad day. I’d been crying all day for a variety of reasons, mainly because I had news and I wanted to share with E., and I couldn’t pick up the phone and call her.

I knelt at her grave and fell forward sobbing with my head in the grass. I wept until I could barely breathe, curled in a ball at the head of her plot, where I’d placed a purple, potted mum.

When I finally came up for air, a dragonfly alighted on one of the flowers.

I gasped and startled it away, but all of a sudden there was peace in my heart, a sense of my heartbeat slowing and returning to a normal rate.

E. wore a dragonfly pin on her wedding day, and was buried in her wedding dress with the pin in place.

How could that be merely coincidence and not some sort of stunning miracle?

How could it not be her, tenderly reaching out to set my heart at ease, a shred of order and connection amongst the maelstrom of pain and loss?

Some of you might be rolling your eyes and saying, “There she goes writing about grief again.”

I get it. I’m starting to bore even myself.

But that’s how I process. I’m going to obsess and cry and mourn and wail until it feels right to stop and return to my regularly scheduled program.

I’m going to continue loving, and looking among the wreckage for those little signs, with every beat of my broken heart.

I feel like I’m existing in some parallel universe, out of sync with everyone around me.

It’s as though I’m onstage with the Rockettes. I look fabulous and I’m smiling, but I’m kicking just a bit lower and off tempo. Actually, that’s a crappy analogy. I could never be a Rockette. Modern dance is more my thing, but I digress.

It’s like I forgot how to talk to people. I worry I’m blinking too much. I worry about eye contact.

I feel simultaneously invisible and horribly exposed, like either I am completely fading away, or everyone can see every raw, messy inch of how awful I feel. Maybe they will be embarrassed for me, or they won’t know what to say. Maybe they won’t care. Either way it feels awkward and unusual.

I second guess everything I say, anxious I make people angry or confused. I’m worried that patience is running thin, that my sorrow is boring and testing those around me.

Even in my writing, I feel like I feel incapable of expressing things with the clarity I so desire. It’s frustrating and makes me tired.

It could also be lack of sleep exacerbating things. I haven’t been sleeping or eating that great since it all happened.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m keeping in motion. I’m bathing and working and functioning at a completely reasonable pace. Kick, jump, shuffle, step.

It’s just this bizarre sense that life is so different, difficult, and exhausting.

My heart aches for E.

What a stupid and trite thing to write, but I don’t know any other way to put it.

After the initial shock of her death, and the emotional roller coaster of the wake and funeral, I felt a bit numb. It wasn’t such a bad thing. It allowed me to go about my day. Feed the kids. See clients. Shop. Make jokes. Have sex. Cook some chicken in the crock pot.

It was easy to kind of start thinking that maybe she was just on one of her cruises with her wife. She was just “away”.

A part of me started to accept her “away-ness.” It didn’t feel terrible.

But then the moment came when I wanted to pick up the phone and call her and I just couldn’t.

I searched around me for some tangible reminder of my connection with her. I put on the scarf she gave me. I looked at her handwriting in the modern dance book she gave me at our last supper out together. “Forty years later, this is yours, my vivacious friend. E.”

Tears came, fresh and hot.

It’s the little things that kill me, like when I want to tell her about a really good session at work, or a particularly rewarding conversation with a coworker. It’s when I want to show her the pictures of my kids dressed up for Halloween, or tell her about something radical my daughter said.

My brain continues to share dumb jokes with her.

Partly it comforts.

But mostly it confounds in the new, one dimensional shape our relationship has taken.

I mentioned to a friend that I was struggling and they suggested I get “professional help.” While I know my friend was just trying to be loving, and I appreciate that, I got super butt hurt over it.

First of all, the last thing a therapist wants to do at the end of the day is more therapy. Believe me. Been there, done that. At this point I am fairly certain I know enough about myself to know that I don’t need therapy. Not just yet, anyway.

Second of all, therapy is not going to bring E. back.

Third, it has only been three weeks. Although cultural expectations would suggest I should be long past things by now, I know that it doesn’t work that way. Not really.

Finally, I don’t want to talk to a stranger about E. I want to talk to my friends, and her friends, and my family about her. I want to share and remember with the people who knew and loved her, or who knew how much I loved her.

I want to visit her grave and cry and read her poems. I want to write about her and feel this longing with every inch of my soul.

And oh my heavens, it aches. It throbs deep in my bones.

How could therapy help or solve that?

Grief is not linear. Rationally I know I will have to continue circling through and around the various phases. Acceptance one week. Anger and denial the next. And so forth.

I have a weird sort of faith in the process, and I do feel like I am moving forward and things will get better. Life goes on. It’s all good. And so forth.

But another part of me wonders if I will ever get back in sync. Her demise has changed me, has changed the shape of my life is ways I am not so certain will reform to what used to be.

There’s a scary thought.

Or is it?

I’m also learning about the ways in which she continues to touch my life, to work through me, even from the great beyond. I’m noticing when I channel her when I sit with clients. I am listening deep inside of me to hear her voice, the voice that I know and love and trust. The voice she shared with me so often. (She doesn’t think I need therapy either btw.)

I’m not a believer.

But E. was.

In some ways, it is like she is challenging me to reconsider that maybe there is more than meets the eye. Maybe dead is more than just dead.

She’s allowed me the gift of being truly able to look directly into my client’s eyes and say “I understand” with complete honesty when they are grappling with grief and loss. There is a beauty and connection in that authenticity that feels like something grand.

And that’s all well and good until I re-realize that I can’t share this with her. Then my stomach lurches and I want to go to bed.

I’ve often said that E. is one of the loves of my life. Not in any sort of sexual way, although there was a platonic romance about our relationship. But my love for her is just so huge. After she died, I wrote to her best friend of 54 years in an email that I “idolized” her. And that was very true.

Damn, it still is true.

But everything is just so altered. Brunch with friends or an evening out doesn’t feel right or good because there is a part of my heart that is missing. And it is so tiring to try to balance the weight of that grief with everything else I have to do with a smile.

I called her wife to check in and say hi, and the answering machine picked up. E.’s voice is still their out going message. I swallowed hard so I could leave a message and sound chipper.

Someday it will not be the grief and pain that tethers me to E., rather the wisdom and happy memories she’s left with me.

But right now, things just feel unbearably different.

And I feel a step or two out of sync with the whole rest of the universe, shuffling and time stepping until I feel like I want to give up and just sit down on stage.

Many thanks to those of you who are bearing with me during this time. . . I apologize for another wave of death and trauma posts. . . but it is what I need to do right now. xoxo.